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Saturday, February 9, 2013

The one and only rack of lamb or 120km/h on a dirt road is too fast

Wow we are
there again in the hut at the mouth of a river I had one of my best fishing
days two years ago. Happy! Sitting here with the iPad and a bottle of Pinot
after a not so good dinner (yes this happens - but that is not related to the
hut but to my bad selection of the cut). But that is presence and we going to
look back in time to our arrival in Glenorchy. Driving up the shore of lake
Wakatipu towards Glenorchy we had a wonderful light of early evening. Rushing
the winding, sometimes narrow road, taking some pictures in the strong evening
wind and arriving at the already mentioned cottage in Glenorchy.

That was
just perfect and as expected absolutely ok that it was not cleaned before - the
discount was a fair deal. We put our five boxes and everything else (one food,
one kitchen tools - never without own tools, one for each with clothes and the
chilly bin or cooler, besides several bags) everything in the cottage and had
the usual dinner procedure. Easy this time - with a full sized kitchen and a
nice table.

In that
cottage Tobias again proved: RV / Motor-homes give the kid a secure environment
it gets used to. But, kids want to discover, thus an RV is boring after a few
days. He has so much fun, when we pitch the tent, he loves to crawl around in
and out and our fixed roof accommodations are always a new environment to
discover for him. Adventures! If you are not afraid of 30-60 minutes extra
packing and set up time per day, go for the camping / holiday home option.
Especially if you want to leave the beaten path and drive some back country
roads without the dishes falling out of the cupboard (we know what we are
talking about after a total of 10 month in motor-homes in northern America). And
compared to the U S and A and Canada most of the campgrounds here in NZ are
kind of disappointing. You criticize them a lot, but their National Park and
National Forest system and camp grounds are top of the line!

We slept
quiet well; the wind was blowing and stirring sand and dust from the riverbed
of the river Dart some more hours. Actually this was the first night where Tobias
got real beaten up by the sandflies - nota bene - not camping but indoors. The
next morning he looked a little bit tortured. But up to now he took it really
cool.

Besides that, one day at the cottage Tobias wore exactly the same colors as one of the paintings in the cottage - look at the picture - isn't that amazing?

Glenorchy
is close to Paradise - in a geographic sense, as not far there is the region
called Paradise.Glenorchy by itself
consists of a boat ramp where these roaring loud jet boats start to race the
Dart river, an old campground, several Cafes and bars that are open only for
the season, a very basic shop to buy food for a premium, a gas station that
closes at 5pm and several houses of which most seem to be holiday homes that
are rented to tourists that do not book Blanket Bay, thus most of the tourists.

What else
about Glenorchy. Oh yes the water. Routeburn River we gave a try together,
walking down from the first swing bridge to the mouth and fishing back up.
There again we meat a friendly Australian Fishermen that we already meat around
Garston at the Mataura. He came over to NZ for a week to fish around QT. The
water was gin clear, I caught a smallish 3lbs something Bow on Royal Wulff that
I saw before in a tiny swirl. We saw some more but all of them where very
spooky. Especially in total three nice ones upstream from the swing bridge. Definitely
on the right day one or the other fish would take the fly, but not on that day
we were there. I mentioned that river here because: 1. the Routeburn is well
known. 2. Thus it gets pretty hammered 3. It is nice, but do expect nothing. 4.
I most likely would not go there again. Unfortunately the fish were far too
spooky to hand the rod over to Ines.

The next
day I wanted to fish a creek close by that tends to be silty after strong
winds. And exactly that was the case. Again Ines could not get a chance, so we
just had a walk on the river. There was only one 'funny' distraction from the
silty stream: a small car that was driving WAY to fast (around 120km/h?) on a
road that - if you go it straight and do not turn - turns gravel suddenly. We
both just saw a cloud of dust, a bang and a still not slowing car. Not before
200m it slowed and came to a stop. It was obvious this car did hit something
and left the gravel road due to loose of control. Several cars did stop and
took care of. Later - after ending the walk on that silty water -we observed
the beaten up small rental car. One side and the front were really beaten up.
It must have left the gravel towards left side, went through a fence, after
20meters back through the same fence and on the road again, losing its front
bumper and coming to a stop 50 meters later. The driver must have been totally
mad or sleepy or just ignorant. As there was no face-mark in the windscreen and
no blood on the dashboard the two passengers must have been very lucky. If
there would have been a pole or a significant tree in their way, they would
have been in Paradise. And not the one close by on the real world. In fact they
were going exactly towards Paradise. Might be they took it to serious.

When we are
on the road we see crashes. Back in 2001 in the U S and A we saw a helicopter
coming down, all survived pretty ok.

The bail
out in terms of fish was a stream I found on the map and observation. Arriving
there, there was already a guide with his client. Bad, because we could not go
there. Good because it confirmed my discovery.

We had an
afternoon off, so we drove to Kinloch to have a cafe there, but they had a
function thus it was closed to the public. We went back to the cottage.

The next
morning I did what you should not do. I was in fish-fever and went straight to
that same peace of water. Normally waters here should rest as long as possible.
Saw several nice ones, hooked and lost one. Can't remember if more went for my
fly. Might be I try to forget my bad landing ratio. I was a little late and by
late morning I could observe the fish slowly vanishing and hiding in the weeds
of that stream. This afternoon we meat Gordy for a cafe at the Café in the
village that the day before did manage to take 20 minutes to serve a cappuccino.
We fish-talked for a while and made plans for possible ideas about fishing
Fjordland.

Thus I
quietly quit quiet early and went back to the bach (“A bach is a small,
often very modest holiday home or beach house. Alternatively called a crib in
the southern half of the South Island,…” from Wiki) with Ines and
Tobias.

We had the last
night in the cottage. Time for some special dish: Rack of Lamb the traditional
way, thus the whole side of the rack in the oven with seasoning. But the oven
did not work. So the pan was the way to go. The two racks marinated for just an
hour with fresh chopped rosemary, garlic, olive oil, salt pepper (just the
thyme was not there, but we did not miss it). It came with mashed potatoes with
lots of butter, fresh beans and a good bottle of red (mentioned before -
cannot remember - oh yes as I took the pictures - it was a Merlot). With a
reduction based on butter, Merlot and some special Italian vinegar and some
pepper. The result was absolutely first choice. I was really happy how it
worked out and tasted made with the special temperature gradient I was
controlling.

Saturday,
we had to relocate and to leave Glenorchy. Our next destination was QT. Some
days before we booked a room at the Scenic Hotel (have been there two or three
times before, close to the center, ok, good value). This and the dinner on the
evening provided some nice surprises. More to follow.

Sorry that
this post got longer. But some of you complaint that the "The Fly
Fishing" in the title of the blog got described in too much of a detail
and the "Family" (btw which is only one of the 3F) comes to short.
Thus I changed that. This might also be related to the fact that we really do
not give too much about the "tourist attractions" here. Most of them
we already did the years before. Sky Diving, Jet Boating, Mountain Biking,
Wineries. Now we just live here and drink the wine and enjoy the country.

And this
blog follows three motivations: diary on fishing without getting to precise on
where and what (that is a real challenge - and I should start my top secret transcription of the rivers not mentioned here by name!), information and sharing with NZ
travelers with a Fly Fishing Focus (again 3F!) and information of friends and
family (oh just 2F...). Just for them are all the pictures without a fish in or
out of focus! ; )